Michel Tognini

Michel Tognini during training in Houston

ESA astronaut, Soyuz TM-15, STS-93Head of European Astronaut Centre

“Gagarin’s flight came at the start of the space race of the 1960s, when space exploration was shackled by political competition. But Gagarin will always be the ‘face’ that symbolises pioneering spaceflight even though by the time I flew, things had already changed.

"It is now all about international cooperation, about what our various space agencies can achieve together for the benefit of mankind.”